Books over Coffee : You Had Me At Hola by Alexis Daria

Telenovelas. Soap Operas. Romance. Two actors trying to prove themselves on a new show. Lights! Camera! Action!

Title : You Had Me At Hola
Author : Alexis Daria
Genre : Romance, Contemporary, Adult
Pages : 384
Own/Borrowed/ARC : eARC provided through NetGalley
Publication Date : August 4th 2020
GoodReads Link /Synopsis :

Leading Ladies do not end up on tabloid covers.
After a messy public breakup, soap opera darling Jasmine Lin Rodriguez finds her face splashed across the tabloids. When she returns to her hometown of New York City to film the starring role in a bilingual romantic comedy for the number one streaming service in the country, Jasmine figures her new “Leading Lady Plan” should be easy enough to follow—until a casting shake-up pairs her with telenovela hunk Ashton Suárez.
Leading Ladies don’t need a man to be happy.
After his last telenovela character was killed off, Ashton is worried his career is dead as well. Joining this new cast as a last-minute addition will give him the chance to show off his acting chops to American audiences and ping the radar of Hollywood casting agents. To make it work, he’ll need to generate smoking-hot on-screen chemistry with Jasmine. Easier said than done, especially when a disastrous first impression smothers the embers of whatever sexual heat they might have had.
Leading Ladies do not rebound with their new costars.
With their careers on the line, Jasmine and Ashton agree to rehearse in private. But rehearsal leads to kissing, and kissing leads to a behind-the-scenes romance worthy of a soap opera. While their on-screen performance improves, the media spotlight on Jasmine soon threatens to destroy her new image and expose Ashton’s most closely guarded secret.

Reading the summary for this book had me reminiscing of times where I was a kid on the couch watching telenovelas with my mother, it had me ready to dive into this head first! I mean, the promise of drama, passion and look at that cover! I won’t summarize again what the book is about as it is just above, instead I will talk about what I enjoyed.

Ashton and Jasmine are two people who are dealing with their own issues in their own way and they are both out there to prove their worth and what they can do on this show that will reach millions. Jasmine wants to get out of the shadow of performing in English language soap operas, her flaw is that she isn’t a fluent Spanish language speaker but she won’t let that deter her because she quickly pairs up with her costars who are fluent to help her build her confidence for the Spanish lines she would need to recite. Ashton’s flaw is that he is very guarded, won’t hang out with cast mates at their parties and is always flying off on his off days without divulging why.

When they have to step into their characters shoes I enjoyed watching them transform into other people. Jasmine into Carmen who is head strong and doesn’t let anyone take advantage of her, Ashton into Victor who is confident of who he is but also breaks down and is vulnerable and open with his ex wife, Carmen. The two learn more about themselves and each other as they continue to film episodes and their off screen relationship evolves.

I also enjoyed the environment that the show is creating behind the scenes. They have many latinx people working on this show from various backgrounds and sexual identities which was so heartwarming and just awesome to see. Something to definitely strive for in the real world. They also mentioned things that we within our own communities need to change such as colorism, there’s a scene where Ashton talks with Jasmine about how he was told to not let himself tan too much as it would hurt his chances at getting more roles. I liked moments like that that showed that there was more happening and more meaning behind a bilingual show like Carmen in Charge being made on a grand scale like it was and barriers that we need to overcome together.

Now the following is major spoilers so skip the bold paragraph if you don’t want to be spoiled.

Honestly, I have it so ingrained that when drama happens, its because someone is pregnant, so when the drama was happening, I was questioning if she was pregnant for a good last chunk of the book. But they circumvented that by having Ashton already be a father. I don’t consider this a big spoiler because it is information given to you when you start the book, it’s just a secret from the whole world. He tries hard to keep that up by having his son live with his father after a fan tried breaking into his home when his son was an infant. What I didn’t like was how Carmen flew off the handle at the fact that he didn’t tell her that he was a father. It was well in his right to chose when and what he would tell her regarding his son and I’m glad that was addressed when she was venting about it with her cousins who made her face just how irrational she was. What I loved the most about this book was how it ended with both of them seeking help for their issues. She for her constant need to be loved/validated by someone and him for his PTSD from the break in that occurred and caused him to seclude himself and hide his son. Often times I would stray away from romance because it was always about how your problems could be solved or would go away because of love. In this story love brought them together and together they decided they needed help for their own issues that made them stronger. I loved that so much.

This novel not only provided steamy intimate scenes between our two protagonist but also had commentary about how hard it is for latinx community to, not only break into an industry, but to face things within our own community. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of these two suddenly falling in love, when it seemed more like lust (that’s just my opinion!!), I loved the passion that they had and how things ended up. While this book is a romance, it didn’t shy away from other topics that were serious but did not take away from the main story.

My Rating :